Lord Adonis: My Lords, the England and Wales Cricket Board has a number of initiatives for enlisting volunteers in cricket in schools, including activities such as Kwik Cricket, HOWZAT!—a teaching and learning programme—and the Pride Side, which aims to encourage children aged six and upwards to have an interest in cricket. In secondary schools, Inter Cricket and a county cricket programme for disabled players has also been set up with substantial funding. The ECB is on the case, but there is always more to be done.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the Prime Minister announced on 5 August that the United Kingdom was seeking to negotiate memoranda of understanding with a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa, containing assurances against torture or ill treatment of those being returned. We have subsequently signed two such MOUs with Jordan and Libya; the MOUs and the assurances contained within them are subject to a monitoring regime conducted by an independent and capable body. The texts are in the Library. A body has agreed to carry out that important role in Jordan; we have agreed in principle with a body in Libya to do the same, and we are now tying down the details with that body.

Baroness D'Souza: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. I have to assume that the very fact that memoranda of agreement have been negotiated with Jordan and Libya and other countries must mean that the Government have very genuine concerns about the possibility of torture of those returnees—genuine concerns because torture continues in both those countries. But those countries have signed the international torture convention among many other treaties that carry an absolute prohibition on torture, regardless of the circumstances. Therefore, why does the Minister believe that the bilateral memoranda of agreement will have greater force than the international treaties that carry the force of law?

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, who are the monitors and what guarantees will there be that they will have access to these people on a continuing basis?

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: asked the Chairman of Committees:
	Why strangers in the main Public Gallery and below the Bar of the House are prohibited from writing whilst observing proceedings.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I have had the wind completely taken out of my sails, although in a most congenial way. When does he think that that sentiment will be reality? Will he and his fellow officers—and indeed the relevant committee—undertake a complete review of the way we offer hospitality to visitors in this place? As one of our peerless Doorkeepers put it to me only a couple of days ago, we treat our visitors like cattle. They start mounting the stairs to the gallery to find an aggressive notice describing them as "strangers"; they reach the top of the stairs and have their body and baggage searched a second time within a few minutes; and they enter the Chamber without any real idea of what is going on.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: In moving Amendment No. 1, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 10 and 12. At last, we have the opportunity—our first in this House—to debate in detail the Bill which adjusts the fundamental relationship between the individual and the state.
	The bedrock of this Government's plans for ID cards is the construction and maintenance of the National Identity Register. So we have tabled amendments to give the Government the opportunity to answer a diverse number of questions about the operation of that register. Examples of the issues raised are as follows. Who should be given the opportunity and duty to maintain the register? Why have the Government chosen this particular model of ID card? What will the purposes of the register be and what will the Government's priorities be in determining them? How will individual citizens be able easily and freely to verify the information held on them? How will the Government ensure the security of information on the register? In addition, of course, they will need to justify the inclusion of certain data on the register, and we will need to question the manner in which the register is maintained.
	I have listed but a few of the issues raised in Clause 1 before we have the delight of going on to later clauses. I outline those issues because I appreciate that Members of the Committee will have seen that a large number of amendments has been tabled. Throughout, instead of just seeking to leave out a particular subsection, I have tried to write in what I am challenging the Government to explain. I appreciate that if I did not do so it would be particularly difficult for those who work so hard on the Back Benches to work out what on earth I am trying to get at. Of course, the Minister has the advantage of professional civil servants behind her, who can plot my every move and thought.
	I now turn to the issue in my first group of amendments. These are probing amendments, and I say that to reassure the noble Baroness's friends on the Benches behind her. They are probing not least because, as I speak, the Home Secretary is addressing a meeting of Conservative Peers within the House to explain to them his proposals on the Terrorism Bill. In those circumstances, I feel that it would be most inappropriate to table anything other than a series of probing amendments.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has done me a great favour in referring to the manifesto. On these Benches, we recognise the Salisbury convention—we live with it and work with it. We also saw the precise wording of the Labour Party manifesto. In another place, the noble Lord's previous colleague, Mr Neil Gerrard, a Labour Member of Parliament, also read those words carefully. He brought forward a vital element for constructive debate and I hope we shall be able to achieve resolution on that point, and on others, during the course of our very constructive proceedings.
	I shall return to my first group of amendments. After three minutes, noble Lords will be glad that we have got that far. The amendments ask the Government to set out their reasons for believing that the scheme is technically deliverable in a way that can be guaranteed to be fully accurate, secure, reliable, affordable in the light of other public spending requirements and sustainable into the future. Amendment No. 1 requires the Government to review the efficacy of the scheme annually—I shall deal with efficiency later—and to set out whether the costs and measures that they have used to establish the scheme are proportionate to the alleged benefits that the Government say will be enjoyed. It also requires the Government to set out annually the reasons why their objectives could not more effectively be achieved by other means. We believe that the amendment will act as a continual duty on the Government to be accountable to Parliament for the operation of the scheme.
	Do the Government agree with the Home Affairs Select Committee of another place when it concluded in paragraph 197 of its report published in July 2004 that,
	"The type of card to be used is a decision of the same order of importance as the architecture of the database, since it has consequences for issues such as how the card will be used and the number of readers and the infrastructure needed"?
	The Select Committee of another place also observed that some of the Government's choices, such as the nature of the chip, follow on the decision to use the passport as the basis for an ID card rather than any independent assessment of what will be the most appropriate for an ID card itself. It was concerned that the Home Office has taken key decisions without any external reference, technical assessment or public debate. How will the Government seek to avoid the problems of other major procurement projects by reflecting those different requirements in the design from an early stage? Given the Government's often repeated claims about the security of using ID cards, what consideration have the Government given to protecting the ID card system, should access to the central database be disabled for whatever reason?
	Amendment No. 10 raises questions about the security of the system. The rewards for a successful attack would be enormous—let us be under no illusions about that. People will try to gain access to the system. Can the Minister say what decisions have been taken about what will happen to a corrupted database? Anyone who uses a computer, as noble Lords do, will know that an IT system can crash. A network can slow down at peak-load periods. If an ID system is dependent solely on checks being made online—that is that the card cannot be relied on to be authentic in itself—the system will be hugely vulnerable. Do the Government accept that it should be possible to check the card securely off-line? If not, how do they propose that cards can be used securely off-line?
	What process will there be for making reliable visual checks? Surely, the reality is that many checks will have to be visual, whether by a shop assistant, a police officer or others. If the card is to be useful for the police, how do the Government propose to ensure that a forensic, non-erasable record of the card's history is maintained so that it can be useful in criminal cases involving attempts to alter the card fraudulently? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that the design of ID cards is flexible enough to accommodate future requirements, such as the storage capacity, which perhaps cannot be anticipated at the start of what has to be a 10-year programme?
	We shall have the opportunity under future amendments to examine more closely the Government's projections of the costs of setting up the scheme. It is not appropriate for me to go down that path on this amendment, which considers an annual assessment of how far the benefits are worth the costs. By the time we come to debate the thorny issue of costs, I hope that the Government will have provided a more detailed version of the KPMG report than was tabled in the Library last week in response to my request to the Minister's office. I am grateful to her for the steps that she has taken so far, but I believe that we need to flesh out some of the detail more thoroughly.
	My amendment would require the Government to be accountable on an annual basis to Parliament for justifying their expenditure against sensible criteria. Surely that is sensible and necessary. These amendments were originally grouped by the Government. I tried to ungroup them but decided that, to help the Committee, they should be regrouped. Therefore, I apologise for the length of my speech.
	Amendment No. 12 considers the reliability of the recording of biometrics and asks how reliable they are, both individually and combined. The Minister's colleague, Mr McNulty, recently admitted that there are problems in capturing accurately the biometrics of certain people—for example, those with brown eyes and those who are bald. The Cabinet Office stated in its report that,
	"around 10 to 15 per cent of genuine people fail the biometric tests set at the highest level of corroboration".
	That study was published in July 2002—some while ago. Do the Government intend to operate at the "highest level of corroboration"? What assessment have the Government made of the categories of people who are likely to present particular difficulty in relation to the capturing of biometrics? What estimate has been made of the number of people in those categories? How do the Government intend to overcome those difficulties, and what is the estimated cost of doing so?
	What is the latest advice that the Government have received about their possible liability where negligence is established in relation to an inaccurate entry in the National Identity Register, and loss is suffered by an individual as a result of misidentification? The noble Baroness's reply to that final question—noble Lords will be pleased to hear—will help to inform our later important debate on Amendment No. 70 to Clause 3, which is tabled in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Phillips of Sudbury. With that raft of questions, I beg to move.

Lord Barnett: I appreciate that and I appreciate why the noble Baroness said it. However, under the terms of her amendment the costs are an essential point. The amendment also states in paragraph (b)(iv) that the Secretary of State should review annually whether the costs are "affordable". However, we need to know what the costs are now, not what they will be in a year's time. That is the question I have to put to my noble friend. I am sure that she is aware of it. If she does not have the answer in her brief, she will get it somehow or other from somewhere. However, I hope that she can give it to us today because, if we do not know what the costs are, we cannot answer the questions posed in the very first amendment. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give us the actual costs, and the assumptions underlying the figures.
	I am bound to express that I have some misgivings about all the figures bandied about by various university research teams and, indeed, by the Government themselves. I should like to read what my noble friend says today and to have it placed in the Library for all of us to see. I want to see both the way in which the Government have calculated the costs and the assumptions underlying them. It seems to me that the costs could be hugely in excess of anything that the Government have yet mentioned. That is not unimportant as regards the question of whether we approve the whole idea of identity cards, to which I am not personally opposed. I should make that quite clear. However, if the costs are to be as astronomical as we have been led to believe, we need to know not only whether the costs are affordable, but whether they constitute value for money in relation to many other questions that will arise. If my noble friend does not have all those answers available this afternoon, I certainly hope that she will be able to satisfy us by making everything available to us later, so that we can make a proper assessment of this amendment and many others that may arise later.

Lord Crickhowell: I put my name to this amendment and I want to follow the helpful remarks that have just been made on the subject of costs. I note that the amendment probes future annual costs, but there are important issues that we need to face right at the outset. The question of costs is intimately related to the question of security, for reasons that I shall come to.
	First, I have a basic question to ask the Minister right at the start of my speech. At Second Reading, she gave us an estimate of costs. Was it for the total costs that will fall on Her Majesty's Government, the taxpayer or those who are forced to pay the fees for these services? Or was it simply the costs to the Home Office or one particular department? Have all the departmental costs been included in the estimates that have been given? Some of the costs for other departments will be very substantial. For example, the Foreign Office issues passports around the world and will have to be equipped with the apparatus to get into and deal with biometric assessment. On one occasion, I was unfortunate enough to have a passport stolen in a remote part of Venezuela and I now have a passport issued very efficiently in the embassy in Caracas. For the embassy to do that in future, it will have to have the equipment to deal with biometric assessment. Do the costs that we have been given include the costs for the Foreign Office, or for the Department of Health, which we are told will be a major user of this system?
	I now come to an area that is slightly painful to me. I have to declare that as the chairman of a public company I had the most unpleasant experience—the most unpleasant of my business career—of dealing with a major government IT contract that did not go very well. I shall not say more about the detail, but one of the reasons why the costs rose by a very substantial amount was that the security requirements from government were repeatedly altered and tightened. Within the past 48 hours, we have read in the newspapers that exactly the same process has been going on in the hugely important contracts to provide for the National Health Service. We have been told that they are running enormously over the original estimates and behind time because the requirements of government have repeatedly been altered. So when we turn to the question of security, we will want to know whether we are completely satisfied that the security requirements have been firmly established and are not going to be substantially altered, and what the impact on costs will be if they have to be altered.
	In this context, I shall make one other point about the question of charges falling on other departments. In the case of the contract to which I have referred, which never came to completion, one of the problems was that it was sponsored by one part of government and was going to be used by another. The part of government that was undertaking the work was reasonably happy with the costs that it would have to pay for the services. But the other departments that were going to come in on the whole business were increasingly unhappy about the charges that would be made to them for the use of the central service. For that reason alone it is absolutely essential that the Government tell us not only the total estimate of costs, but the impact and the anticipated charges for the departments which will have access to the system.
	I make another brief point about security; we shall turn later to the whole question of security. On listening to some of the speeches at Second Reading, I gained the impression that many people thought we were entering a new and marvellous era in which there was going to be a huge improvement in security. We heard many stories about the shortcomings of the present arrangements and the scope for fraud. It is true that with this kind of system some sorts of fraud will be much more difficult to execute. But, as my noble friend pointed out, there will be an enormous incentive for some organisations and some individuals to find ways of getting into the system. We know from experience that, however tight security is, brilliant individuals—often very young individuals—have an ability to hack into highly secure systems. For example, a young man living in a council house in south Wales hacked into the Pentagon's main defence system in the United States. One can be quite certain that attempts will be made.
	The point I want to make about security is that one has to understand that we are no longer dealing with fingerprints in the traditional sense. I turn to the advice given by the Home Office's chief scientific officer. We are dealing with a fingerprint translated into information based on a series of what are called algorithms, and those are digital. When we talk about a threat from getting at information in the register, we are talking about the ability to get at not only someone's age, residence or other information of that kind, but biometric information, and it will be digital information. If one can hack into a system, not only can one extract the digital information containing the biometric material but one can probably alter it. Therefore these are central issues and—I return in a circular way to costs—I suspect that as the systems develop more and more money will have to be spent on dealing with these problems.
	In a very interesting article on this subject, the chief scientific adviser to the Home Office said:
	"The proper application of biometric technologies is at least as important as choosing the correct technology—or mix of technologies. For example, a high quality user interface and an optimised capture environment is necessary to put the person at ease to ensure that the best image is obtained. Security issues need to be addressed so that the biometric system will not accept plastic fingers with an impressed fingerprint or a photograph of a face. Of course, the needs of the elderly and disabled have to be taken into account as well".
	One begins to see the difficulties when one considers the whole question of accuracy and reliability. The chief scientific adviser, Professor Paul Wiles, finishes his article with the words:
	"The key, however, will be to ensure that these are introduced in a standards-compliant system, which is secure, easily used by the vast majority of the population and in applications that provide clear benefits to the citizen, the foreign visitor and public and commercial organisations".
	I do not believe that it is at all clear that those conditions can yet be met. One thing of which I am quite certain is that we need to have much more information than we have so far been given about the costs, how they have been arrived at and the assumptions on security.

The Earl of Erroll: As this is not a Second Reading debate, I shall return to the substance of the amendment. The proposed subsection is very useful because ultimately if the costs are too great the scheme will not work and will not be worthwhile.
	I am particularly interested in proposed paragraph (c), which refers to reviewing,
	"whether . . . it is the most effective means of achieving the purpose set out in subsection (4)".
	I have often thought that, to a certain extent, ID cards are being introduced as an answer to problems created in the first place by bad legislation. For instance, the simple answer to the problem of having to produce utility bills to open a bank account is to remove that requirement. It is not a very effective measure anyway because an individual could change address a week after producing a utility bill. The answer is to attack the international money-laundering committee and the FSA and get them to remove that requirement. You do not need an ID card to do that—not that I think it will help, anyway.
	It is argued that the ID card will improve access to health. A health card is to be introduced, and I would have thought that it was the most effective way of giving access to health rather than requiring the production of an ID card also. Therefore, this is a particularly important subsection. I do not think that people have really thought out what the purposes are and the most effective way of achieving them.
	Given technological developments, the card will probably become irrelevant after a short while. It is anticipated that there will be fast enough fingerprint and iris readers in the street so that you are the card. It all goes back to the central database anyway, so the authorities will simply need to take two fingerprints—I do not know how many fingers you want to give the Government—which will get sent up-line. If they compare okay, more of them will not be needed and the individual will not need to carry a card. But what you have got is a central registry of everyone's data. That, I think, is the current plan.
	Another aspect of proving citizenship that we need to knock on the head is the proposal that everyone resident in this country for more than three months should have an ID card. That would not imply citizenship or belonging at all.

Lord Selsdon: I have a feeling that the title of the Bill is wrong. It should not be called the Identity Cards Bill, but the title as effectively it appears in the Bill—a National Identity Register, which is the principle that we come to. I spoke in the first Second Reading debate. Two issues concern me—bureaucracy and cost. I ask the Government to revisit a Question for Written Answer that I asked in June 2004. I asked Her Majesty's Government which documents issued by which government departments were proof of identity for which purposes? It was an extraordinarily long list, which is in Hansard. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was kind enough to reply—it took two months—with something that caused me considerable concern. Like the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that led me to believe that we should have an ability to prove our national identity.
	That ultimate proof—as I have put down in Amendment No. 269—is, of course, the passport issued by the Secretary of State by royal prerogative. It is the only accepted proof of identity worldwide. Therefore, the Secretary of State responsible for issuing passports should be responsible for ensuring that passports are issued only to bona fide people. Members of the Committee will be aware that in this country more than 80 per cent of British citizens have passports, which are adequate proof of identity and, probably, are the only acceptable proof of identity. Should your Lordships wish to have a new driving licence, a passport must be produced. A new driving licence is not classified as a full driving licence, which is, of course, the proof of identity required by the department with responsibility for social security. I take that as proof of identity being the vital criterion. How much should it cost to prove our identity?
	Noble Lords may well be aware that those of us who suffer the advantage or disadvantage of being heredity Peers with a different name have a tremendous problem proving our identity. Our father's name does not appear on our birth certificates because he was not ennobled at the time. Therefore all my life I have suffered the difficulty and indignity of having to produce a birth certificate, a marriage certificate and my passport on which, on the continent of Europe, only two names may be accepted by the computer. I should be "Selsdon Malcolm", but my passport begins with "The Right", and sometimes I am "Mr Right The", possibly from Vietnam. At the other end of my name, rather embarrassingly I happen to be "of Croydon". So I am "Monsieur Croydon Of", since "Of" apparently is a Norwegian Christian name. Somewhere in the middle of that I am "Selsdon Malcolm". These are minor issues, but I feel that proof of identity is absolutely vital.
	I turn now to the frustration I endured when I went to the box down the road to have my identity confirmed. I thought that I was a reasonably ordinary looking person. The camera taking my photograph gave instructions in a synthesised Japanese voice: "Move forward, move back, move sideways". It then clicked. When the camera came to my eyes, the process took some 20 minutes. Apparently I suffer from hooded eyes. I was asked to open my eyes wide so that they could be seen. But then the wide-open eyes made the face look like some lunatic so that it did not relate to the original photograph. That failed. In the mean time the image was sent down the line electronically to the passport headquarters somewhere near Winchester, but there was a slight fault on the line.
	More exciting were my fingerprints. I have used them on many occasions as a proof of identity, and from time to time on various cards now. But because I had been working in the agricultural sector, pruning vines fairly heavily for several weeks, the ridges on my fingers had gone so that the prints were not recognisable. I then discovered that the technology, advanced though it is, probably cannot pick up four fingers and two thumbs on two hands. Furthermore, biometrically it could not absorb the data of one's face. So it was unreliable.
	I spent quite some time discussing with officials at the Home Office the following question: what proof do we need to establish our identity? What will fingerprints show? Fingerprints work well if the ridges are not worn out, which happens with age. But they will not reveal what sex you are, or what your sexual orientation might be. They do not reveal that list of things that the Government, in the spirit of freedom of information, expect to be detailed. The question then was: could fingerprints reveal your sex or any other information? The answer is yes, but only if the DNA is taken from them. How long will it be before we turn to that procedure? The Home Office is quite keen for everyone to supply a sample of their DNA, as are the police, because they think that such a database might help to solve crimes. I believe that DNA was a help in some 70,000 cases last year.
	My worry is that as we consider the list of information to be included on the identity card, I do not believe that the technology is sufficiently advanced to be able either to absorb all the information or to regurgitate it. A further worry is that under freedom of information legislation, everyone may gain access to DNA details. Think of the number of paternity suits which may arise around the world brought by those born on the wrong side of the blanket.
	The Government are seeking to achieve an extraordinarily difficult objective here. I believe in using an identity card to prove identity, but equally the information we are seeking to include means that, as technological developments progress, by the time it is introduced the card will already be out of date. Moreover, we do not know what the cost will be. Given that, I support strongly the probing amendment tabled by my noble friend. First, how much is it going to cost us and, secondly, why do we not keep on reviewing it as progress is made?

Lord Campbell-Savours: I want to intervene only briefly to bring to the debate a little balance on the issue of costs, a matter raised by my noble friend Lord Barnett and others. During the Second Reading debate, my noble friend on the Front Bench said that,
	"it [the card] will not include medical records, financial or tax records, criminal records or driving records".—[Official Report, 31/10/05; col. 115.]
	I want to look at the specific issue of tax records.
	I understand that tax records material will not be included on the national database. However, the fact that a person's identity can be established from the existence of a card must have implications for the tax system. Indeed, I would hope that it would do. I draw my noble friend's attention to the fact that if we are to review whether the costs are,
	"proportionate to the benefits such a system would bring",
	then we must take into account the effect of the introduction of the card on the tax system in terms of receipts. What will the additional revenue be to the Exchequer arising out of these cards when we know that we have a black economy in this country which some people estimate to be in the region of £10 billion in lost revenue? I believe that the figure is far higher than that?
	I draw to the Committee's attention a list of those areas which, if we are to go down the route of this amendment, we might wish to take into account in evaluating the net financial benefit to the state rather than the cost to the state from the introduction of these cards. There would be a substantial windfall in national insurance contributions. The avoidance of capital gains tax on share transactions at the moment costs the Revenue a fortune. The avoidance of tax on share dividends costs the Revenue a lot of money. There is also a loss to the Revenue from those who trade above the VAT threshold to avoid registration within the United Kingdom. What about the vast amount of money lost to the Treasury every year because people use illegitimate means of avoiding capital transfer tax? What about the loss to the Revenue annually on rental income; the large amount of property that is owned by people overseas who do not pay tax within the United Kingdom on their rental income? I see that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is shaking his head.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I find it astonishing—and perhaps my noble friend Lord Gould will explain this—that the identity card will be equally popular even if it is quite expensive. My noble friend Lord Gould can give the Committee all the polling information which explains this. As I say, I find it astounding that the polling data reveal that even if it is quite expensive, it will still be quite popular. It is astonishing.

The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, have we not just been told by the Minister that the cost will be something like £500 million? There seems to be an even bigger leap between £38,000 million and £580 million—or am I just being my normal totally mathematically illiterate self?

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, we must not get mixed up between the set-up costs and the running costs. The running costs are £500 million a year and the set-up costs are £5.2 billion. I believe that I am right in saying that. The LSE may have taken into account both the set-up costs and the running costs over a period of 10 or more years. That is probably the answer to the noble Lord's question, but I am sure that the Minister will tell me if I am wrong.
	The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, must welcome this amendment, as I say. But he has not been in this House wrong, and I am afraid that he has the wrong impression. He says that we do not get political in this House, but I can assure him that that is entirely erroneous. Indeed, if party politics did not come into our discussions, this would be a very dull place. So I appeal to him—I implore him—not to deny us his undoubted debating skills, which made the House of Commons a very pleasant place to be when I was sitting on the same Benches with him. Please—I was going to call him George, but I mean the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—do not worry about having the occasional political sally.
	My final point is that we are told that because the Government put this proposal in the manifesto, they have a mandate. Indeed, I can hardly believe that I did, but I thought that I heard the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, say that it was a manifesto commitment, and that therefore—

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I hate to interrupt the noble Lord in full flow, but he has touched on an absolutely vital point. I believe that I can assist and reassure him at the same time, in that I have looked at the precise wording of what was said in the Labour Party manifesto, and I hope to persuade the Government to follow what they said that they were going to do, not what they have done in this Bill.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Baroness, and I shall listen to her throughout the debates on this Bill. I have to say that I did not speak on Second Reading, but I am totally opposed to the Bill; I say that in case noble Lords have not got that idea by now.
	The Government claim that they have a mandate that is a majority for the Bill, but I have to point out that they got only 37 per cent of the vote. If you look at the totality of the people, they got only 20 per cent, which means that 63 per cent of voters did not vote for this Bill. You have to be very careful when you say that you have a mandate for something when 63 per cent of the population has voted against it.
	Please do not get up and lecture me about the arguments about mandates and what have you. I have been around, locally and nationally, for a lot longer than some people in this House. I understand that mandates and such have their importance. On the other hand, they have to be put in perspective when we are dealing with such a Bill as this, which reduces the freedom that people enjoy in this country.
	The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to proving that one is a British subject. I am 79, and I have not yet had to prove that I am a British subject with an identity card except during the last war, and that was very different from what is being proposed now. This Bill is taking us not forward but a long way back. I want to return to the freedom that we enjoyed some years ago before both parties began undermining the freedoms that are so valuable and make this country what it is.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: This is a probing amendment and, in my view, it is extremely helpful. At this early stage, the suggestion of an annual review on what is a very difficult subject has a great deal of merit. However, in this discussion on the costs and benefits, I should like to probe for a moment the issue of the benefits. Many serious points have been raised about the costs and I shall listen carefully to what the noble Baroness says in answer, but when we come to the benefits, we should consider carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, said about how the legislation would assist the police. My first parliamentary excursion was to try to be elected as a Conservative MP for Brixton. I am afraid that it failed, but I lived on the edge of Brixton and my question comes from that.
	Let us suppose that a police officer in Brixton or any similar community stops a young man or woman of whatever ethnicity—it does not matter what it is—to try to find out who they are and what they are doing. At present, it does not seem that the provisions of the Bill will help in the slightest. The likely outcome of the Bill is that all of us who want passports and driving licence will have to apply for a card in a semi-compulsory way, but a very large number of the younger people in, say, the Brixton area will not apply for a card. They are not obliged to carry a card, so what is the police officer going to do? How many years will it be before this legislation is of the slightest assistance to the police, the security services or anyone else? As people will not have applied for a card, they will not have registered, and their fingerprints and other biometric information will be available only if they happen to have a criminal record, which is the current position. So, at present, there seems to be a massive hole in the supposed benefits of the Bill, whether one is talking about national security, the detection of crime or the other points listed in subsection (4). I much look forward to the answer.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: As Members of the Committee will know, the Passport Agency will now be dealing with the biometric data which need to be included in the new biometric passports. But it is right to say, as I understand it—and I am sure I will be corrected if I have misunderstood it—that the biometric data in the new biometric passports will not necessarily include all 13 identifiers that we propose should be included in what we are discussing under the Bill.
	We have also to bear in mind that much of the technology is changing rapidly and beneficially. In fact, problems previously identified are being eased and changed. As an example, I shall respond directly to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, about brown eyes being difficult. Having had the pleasure of having my eyes scanned in Committee Room 4 yesterday—as many of your Lordships will have also—I understand that brown eyes now cause no difficulty because a new filter has been put in. I am told that, contrary to the assertion, my brown eyes are now incredibly easy to scan—and I was told that they were preferable to some other-coloured eyes. I, of course, could not possibly comment on that. We bear in mind the rapidity of the improvements, but technological improvements so far appear to be making it easier, more effective and more efficient. What is happening with the biometric—

Lord Lucas: The noble Baroness is comparing the total benefits of owning a car with the cost of the petrol. You have to include capital costs, particularly of electronic equipment. The rough annual cost of electronic equipment is about 30 per cent of its capital value in replacement, refurbishment and necessary improvements. Unless we have a clue what the capital cost is, neither we nor the Government can have an idea of whether it is worthwhile.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: At the end of two hours of debate, I am sure of only three things in this world. First, this has been a very well informed and detailed debate kicking off what may be up to five days of consideration in Committee—unlike the BBC website today that said we would have only two days in Committee; we take more care over legislation than that. Secondly, I am sure that we will have a chance to return to many of these issues in more detail at the proper time. Thirdly, I will be lynched if I take too much time withdrawing an amendment that I said was probing in the first place.
	One thing that I am not sure about at the end of this debate is whether the Government have any idea about the real costs overall. I can see a geographical colleague here; the noble Lord, Lord Gould of Brookwood, whose title comes from somewhere a stone's throw away from mine. I know about his great expertise in polling, but what the Government have come up with here is a resounding "don't know".
	The Minister must have a cadre of civil servants behind her who know my every move and thought, and I got even more worried about that because although we are not allowed to refer to any of those who attend these debates, I had intended to quote the words of the Minister, Mr Andy Burnham, and will continue to do so. He was kind enough to attend a meeting in the House last week. He was very courteous and came along to a meeting about costs that I chaired along with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, that was also attended by representatives from the LSE. I was struck by one of his remarks to us. He said:
	"Please do not take into account integration costs"—
	That is, the costs to other departments. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has asked the Government to state clearly the benefits to the Treasury. The whole thrust of the debate today is to say, "be clear and honest". If the Government are telling us not to take integration costs into account, we must say "Why, what are you hiding?" The Government now have five days to show us that there is benefit after all. At the moment, we still "don't know". I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: In moving this amendment, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 6 and 97. This group of amendments has been tabled to give the Committee the opportunity to debate some of the recommendations of the Select Committee on the Constitution in its Third report published on 24 October. My amendments focus on the question of who should maintain the register.
	The Select Committee recommends that,
	"because of the scale, complexity and sensitivity of the enterprise now proposed, Parliament should consider the case for amending the Bill to provide for the creation of a new entity (whether registrar, commissioner, commission or other agency), with the duty to maintain the Register in accordance with the primary legislation made by Parliament and the secondary legislation made by the Secretary of State".
	Furthermore, the committee also recommends that:
	"The Secretary of State's duties in relation to the appointment and funding of such an entity should also be stated in the Bill".
	I tabled these probing amendments in direct response to the committee's recommendations, and I am grateful to the Public Bill Office for taking such care in drafting them.
	The Bill's primary significance lies in the creation of a national scheme for registering the identities of everybody over the age of 16 in the UK, other than foreign nationals who are here for less than three months. The creation of the National Identity Register is therefore the foundation for the Government's proposal to roll out identity cards until everybody over 16 is compulsorily registered for an ID card. In responding to my previous amendment, the Minister said that she was sure that I understood what "initially" meant in the Labour Party manifesto. I do, and I know what the rest of that quote from the manifesto meant and should mean in the context of the Bill. I am also aware that Labour MPs in another place realise what it should mean in the context of the Bill, but we will return to that.
	The Bill puts the duty to maintain the National Identity Register firmly in the hands of the Secretary of State. The Government have said that they intend that the register should be maintained by an executive agency, reporting to the Secretary of State and with a remit entrusted to it by him. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, confirmed that intention in her letter dated 19 September addressed to the Select Committee on the Constitution. The problem is that the Bill fails to include that proposal in its current form. There is no provision to require the Secretary of State to establish such an agency. There is no provision summarising the essential features of the proposed relationship between the agency and the Secretary of State. It would therefore be possible for a future government to replace the executive agency with a different structure by executive action alone, with no reference to the view of Parliament. For example, a government could adopt the model of administration by civil servants working directly to the instructions of the Secretary of State. The amendments in this group therefore make it clear that the registrar would be independent of government.
	The new Schedule 1A sets out the proposals as to appointments, remuneration, staff and funding. It is purely a probing amendment. The proposals are not meant to be the end product but are there to prompt a response from the Government. We invite the Government to tell the Committee how they expect the system to operate. If they object to the proposals in the new schedule, will they say why they object and what they intend to put in its place? I believe that we should keep trying to get some clarity in the Bill. I beg to move.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Does the noble Baroness think that because this will eventually be a compulsory scheme, it will be very different from obtaining a passport or driving licence, which people choose to do? Of course the vast majority of people have driving licences, and more and more have passports, but getting them is voluntary rather than compulsory. To have a Home Secretary forcing one to this or face a considerable penalty is very different. Have the Government considered that?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I agree. This is Committee, which is why I thought we would get an agreement on how we would deal with this. I did not want to appear discourteous, or not to be giving people the opportunity to ask whatever they wish. I hope that I can take the general consensus and say that I will remain seated until I feel that there is a flavour in the Committee as to what the issues are, and then seek to reply. I hope that that will help our speedy expedition. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, that I agree with him. Quite often at the beginning of Bills in Committee we have a plethora of issues, but they settle down after a while and we become more disciplined, if I can put it that way, about dealing with each issue as it arises.
	I turn to answer the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and do him the courtesy of giving him an answer, because he has now waited for quite some time. First, regarding implementation of the compulsory nature, we can adopt the super-affirmative resolution procedure. The principle of compulsion is what we deal with in this Bill. As to when that comes in, that will be subject to the super-affirmative procedure. We have indications from the Delegated Powers Committee that this is an appropriate way of dealing with that matter, bearing in mind that we will have the opportunity to debate the principle in this primary legislation.
	The noble Lord asked about removal from the register. The Bill provides a route to compulsion through designated documents and through an order under Clause 6. A voluntary application to go on the register will lead to an entry being made. The entry will be voluntary and will stay on the register, but there will be no need to keep a card on record or to update the details unless and until it becomes compulsory for that person to register. If a number of years were to go by, it would not be necessary to give updated details in relation to addresses, moves and so forth. That would arise only when compulsion comes in.
	We will have an opportunity to debate the principle behind the proposals and then an opportunity to discuss whether the super-affirmative procedure is appropriate to introduce compulsion in due course. At that stage, the benefit of the super-affirmative procedure is that Members of the Committee will have not only the opportunity to accept or reject, but a greater opportunity to interrogate the proposal in a way that will make sense.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Whatever my noble friend says sounds gentle on the ears to me. I welcome his contributions.
	I agree with my noble friend that we need clarity. That is why I brought the amendment forward. The Select Committee on the Constitution tried to assist the House in debating how that clarity can be achieved. I agree that whatever one's views on the merits or faults of the Bill, it is vital that the scheme should be conducted on a strong legal basis and that adequate safeguards should be in place to protect individuals from excessive intrusion into their affairs by institutions of the state or indeed by others. That has underpinned our discussions today.
	The Minister specifically and repeatedly mentioned in answer to this amendment the role of the Passport Agency in rolling out the scheme. The more she talks in that vein, the more it sounds as though the Government have assumed that the Passport Agency will run the whole ID system. It will not merely roll out passport biometrics with an ID register, but it will get the Golden plumb—the Oscar at the end of the red carpet—to run the scheme. In future amendments, we will need to consider whether it is appropriate for the agency to roll out the scheme or to run it.
	The Minister's noble friend Lord Clarke of Hampstead has tabled Amendment No. 151 to which I have added my name. It gently probes whether there should be competitive tendering and again that is an issue to which we must return. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Seccombe: In moving Amendment No. 3, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 58, 91, 220, 230, 243, 244, 245, 271 and 273.
	The purpose of these amendments is to probe what exactly is envisaged as regards the ambit of the legislation. It seems to me that there are many odd things about it. First, it is styled as a national identity register and a national identity card. But where, can the Minister explain, does Scotland fit in? Is she aware of the resolution passed by the Scottish Parliament which states that the proposal in this Bill is,
	"flawed on political, technical and financial grounds"?
	It stated that ID cards,
	"offer an ineffective response to problems of security and fraud and pose an unacceptable threat to civil liberties".
	It,
	"rejects the Prime Minister's belief [stated in the House of Commons] that it is legitimate and right in this day and age to ask people to carry identity cards",
	which appears to go far beyond the current scope of the Bill and would require the consent of the Scottish Executive. By the way, what did the Prime Minister mean by that? Finally, it reminds us that the Scottish Executive has said that ID cards will not be required to allow access to public services in Scotland.
	It does not sound as though there is much enthusiasm for the Government's position on ID cards or for the Prime Minister's belief that it is right to ask people to carry them in Scotland. So how can this scheme be called "national" if the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive want no part of it? We will have an opportunity to look at these issues in more detail when we get to Clause 44, to which we intend to lay amendments, but it would be very helpful if the Minister could make the general position clear now.
	Is it correct that, whatever the view of their Parliament, any Scottish person wanting to leave Scotland to go abroad will be registered and made to buy an identity card when they apply for a passport? That does not seem very respectful of the spirit of devolution, or of the Scottish Executive and Parliament. Who will pay for the cost of establishing and maintaining an ID card regime for the Scots and enabling public service outlets in Scottish hospitals, surgeries and benefit offices to have card readers? Clearly, it will not be the Scottish Executive. Will English and Welsh citizens have to cross-subsidise policing the system in Scotland?
	The noble Baroness made it quite clear at Second Reading that the Government want to move to compulsion and she has said so again today. Indeed, the whole Bill is about compulsory volunteering. When that happens and, as the Government intend, it becomes necessary to show an ID card to get NHS treatment in England, will it be the case that a Scot visiting his mother in Carlisle would have to show an ID card before being able to go to her local hospital, but that his mother visiting him in Dumfries will be able to go to his hospital without a card? Meanwhile, his aunt, married and living in Denmark, would not have to get an ID card and could walk into both surgeries whenever she liked. How does that all add up? We will need to look very carefully into all this when we get to Clause 15.
	Can the Minister give us an idea of how it will all work? What would happen if a Scottish pensioner wanted to get a freedom pass in London to get access to free public transport? Would they have to show an ID card, notwithstanding the resolution of the Scottish Executive that access to no public service should be subject to the production of a card? And what if someone in Carlisle has a damaged ID card and has not handed it in because they cannot afford a new one or are frightened that they might be fined £1,000 for not having given the information? Are they not likely to go over the Border where they will not be asked for their card to get public services? Maybe it would be wise to build an A&E hospital at Gretna Green.
	What freedom will the Scottish Parliament really have? Does the Sewell convention apply here? Is the meaning of "national" in the title of the scheme that the Government will find ways to impose ID cards on the people of Scotland even if they do not want them? What about non-British citizens? The Government say that a purpose of the card is to be a jolly convenient bit of plastic to get around other regulations such as the ridiculous money-laundering regulations. Can anyone play? Clause 2 says that anyone turning up at Dover can have one. They do not have to be a UK citizen; so that is not much of a national card.
	My amendment would restrict the right to apply for a card to UK citizens and so ease the administration of a major potential burden. Will the Government accept the amendment? The Bill talks about anyone who proposes to enter the UK being able to register. There are roughly 25 million visits to this country each year, among them a likely pool of potential terrorists. There is talk of a prescribed period for which you have to stay to qualify for a card. Is the Government's long-term aim that all those visitors be registered? What if many want to be registered? You can just imagine travel agents in Toulouse or Tampa Bay telling their customers, "Get one of those English ID cards if you are proposing to enter the UK. It makes it more convenient to deal with banks or to get out a library book". If they all applied for a card, it would no longer be national, and the whole system would surely be overwhelmed.
	The head of the Passport Service has already declared that he intends to process 4.5 million people in the interrogation centres that he is building. The mind boggles about how the thing would operate if even a quarter of tourists wanted to be on the system. Ministers have obviously thought about it; or else we would not have Clause 2(3) as a gatekeeper. Will the Minister tell the House precisely on whom the gate will be closed? If foreign visitors are unregistered, do we not risk ignoring some of the very people who most pose a threat?
	The question of Scotland and the question of foreign nationals are two different things, but if it really is a national scheme Scots should be forced in and foreigners frozen out. What precisely is the Minister's vision of the make-up of the register by, say, 2010? It would certainly help us to know that now, and it will enlighten our later discussions. I beg to move.

The Earl of Erroll: The noble Lord is slightly out of date. Most local authorities are now issuing proof of age cards. There are widely-held cards. There are smart cards where the authorisation of identity checking is done properly via schools, and the Portman Group and various others also issue such cards. I am afraid that the noble Lord is out of date.

Lord Crickhowell: It happens that I used to be chairman of a public body that called itself the National Rivers Authority, which had no authority in Scotland at all. That caused a certain amount of debate when it was set up. There were those who argued that we should not call ourselves national, but we did and somehow it worked.
	When I saw the amendment, I asked myself what the position in Scotland was, and I was uncertain. The noble Lord who has just spoken said that Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, which is perfectly correct, but certain aspects of the legislation are covered by the Scottish Parliament. My first question is simple; are there any aspects of the legislation covered by the Scottish Parliament that in any way impinge in an adverse way on this scheme or would cause difficulties? My second question is about the requirements that we will debate in later amendments to attend at a specified place and time to register biometric details. Is it the intention of the Government to ensure that suitably-equipped places will be provided as much in Scotland as they are in the rest of the United Kingdom?

Lord Selsdon: My noble friend's amendment intrigues me because it takes me back to nationality Acts. The business of defining people is strange. I believe that under the law you can be a British citizen but not a British national. I am not sure of all the ingredients.
	First, we should begin to determine how many British nationals there are. Members of the Committee will remember that only a few moments ago I reminded them that 80 per cent of the British population have passports. But your Lordships will be intrigued to know that the most recent information I have from the Home Office is that 13 million British subjects are living abroad. I think that if we asked each other how many British subjects lived abroad the figure would probably be between 1 million and 3 million. But when one takes into account that at the general election 19 million people did not vote and that 13 million British subjects are living abroad, we can possibly suggest that the majority of British nationals have not been sufficiently consulted through the parliamentary process.
	I like the idea of replacing the word "National" with "British" because that is what we are talking about—protecting British nationals and giving them the right to prove who they are wherever they may be. I explained earlier that I have difficulty in proving who I am, and therefore I have issued my own identity cards. They are in a plasticised envelope so that they may not be worn out or damaged when I swim. I have a photocopy of the coloured page of my passport and of my signature. I have a colour copy of my driving licence and, believe it or not, I have a colour copy of my House of Lords pass.
	Some time ago, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, whether the House of Lords pass was proof of identity. He said that it was not as it was not an official document. Yet the noble Lord opposite will see that the pass—he is wearing it round his neck with pride—states: "This pass is an official document". If it is an official document and is not proof of identity when an official document held by a member of the Armed Forces or the police is proof of identity, then what is it and why are we required to wear it around our necks? The only real proof of identity in life is recognition.

Lord Selsdon: The noble Lord knows that he and I share that view, and I do not wear it around my neck. As I was about to say, the only real proof of identity is recognition. When I first came to your Lordships' House, I was told that you could not get up and say "the noble Lord opposite"; you had to use his name, even if you had to whisper to colleagues on the Back Benches to find out what it was. You had a duty to recognise him. All the staff in the Palace of Westminster used to recognise us. Not so long ago in this recognition game, Black Rod was kind enough to give me the numbers of all those working in the Palace so that when they said "My Lord" and were not sure who you were, you could look at the number on their sleeve, look down at your crib and say, "Well, Mr X. how's your wife?", because ultimately recognition is important. Therefore, if we are talking about protecting British nationals, which we are, I would prefer that we used the word "British" rather than "National".

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: What a pleasure it is, for the second time in my experience, to be able to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. I presume that by removing from the Bill all references to the word "national", the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, wished merely to probe whether this was truly a national scheme, given that identity cards could be utilised in different parts of the country. I agree with the comments made and I am quite confident that the noble Baroness was not suggesting that we separate Scotland off or that the Scottish nationalists have it right and that there should be a Scottish passport. I wholeheartedly endorse the comments made by my noble friend Lord Maxton on this matter, ably supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, who can always be relied upon to know all things Scottish.
	The issue of identity cards is, of course, a reserved matter, as my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, made clear. Therefore, it will be a matter for the United Kingdom Government to decide that identity cards, just like passports, should be issued throughout the United Kingdom, including Scotland. The Scottish Executive has responsibility for devolved services, and access to state benefits or other reserved services are matters for the United Kingdom Government, so it will be for the UK Government to decide whether an ID card can be issued or needs to be provided for.
	I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, was correct—I do not have the actual decision—in saying that health, unlike immigration and identity cards, is a devolved matter. Entitlement to access a service will depend on the rules in the individual jurisdiction. That is a consequence of the devolution settlement and not of this Bill. The noble Baroness is right to say that the Scottish Parliament is entitled to say that. That does not mean that we seek in any way to change the arrangement that was made on devolution. These issues will have to be dealt with.
	Visitors will not be entitled to register; only residents in the United Kingdom will be eligible to register and only if they have been resident for the prescribed period, which will probably be about three months. These are issues for discussion under Clause 2. The importance of making this a national identity card system is plain. I agree with comments made by my noble friend Lady Henig and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. It is important to deal with that.
	The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, asked whether the system will cause difficulty and, if so, how. I hope I have dealt with that point. We do not believe that it will cause difficulty. He also asked whether there will be suitably equipped places where such data can be taken in Scotland. Certainly, there should be. We want a fair distribution of such places throughout the country so that they are easily accessible for citizens in the various parts of the country to give such data. I do not know whether many noble Lords took advantage of the opportunity to see, in Committee Room 4, how easily and quickly that can be done. I took that opportunity and I was surprised that it took only a matter of seconds to do the iris, only a matter of seconds to do the fingerprints, and the facial recognition was very quick too. We hope that such facilities will be available for those who will need them. The legislation will apply throughout the United Kingdom because it relates to issues that are within the competence of the Westminster Parliament.

The Earl of Onslow: Before the noble Baroness withdraws the amendment perhaps I can ask the Minister a question. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, has just said that foreign nationals would not have to put their nationality on an ID card, so why does subsection (8) state:
	"In this section 'residential status', in relation to an individual, means—
	"(a) his nationality;
	"(b) his entitlement to remain in the United Kingdom; and
	"(c) where that entitlement derives from a grant of leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, the terms and conditions of that leave".

Lord Thomas of Gresford: The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, urged the Government to be clear and honest. My entirely constructive and amiable purpose is to give a proper nomenclature to the register. Perhaps the Committee will forgive a short historical perspective which will help to support my argument for the change because it demonstrates how safeguards have in the past been set aside and how one thing leads to another. On 5 July 1915, in the middle of the Great War, the National Registration Bill was before the House of Commons, requiring every person between the ages of 15 and 65 to register in a national register for the purposes, so it was said, of using the workforce to the best effect. The Labour Party was against the Bill in principle. Philip Snowden, later to be Chancellor of the Exchequer in the first two Labour governments, said that the hidden purpose was to aid conscription. He said:
	"I submit that the ulterior purpose of this Bill has not been disclosed, because if there was no motive behind the Bill than that which is disclosed in it, then such a Bill could not possibly have emanated from any other source than Bedlam".
	Of course, the Government denied that the register was to aid conscription. Six months later it was used to aid conscription. They denied that identity certificates had to be carried and produced. In early 1918 the Act was amended to permit a constable to demand sight of the identity certificate on pain of criminal sanctions. But at least the sun set on the 1915 Act when hostilities ceased in November 1918.
	On 5 September 1939, on the outbreak of the war against Hitler, another emergency registration Act was passed. It was passed for three stated reasons: first, the dislocation of the population caused by mobilisation and mass evacuation; secondly, the likelihood of rationing; and, thirdly, the need for recent statistics because there had been no census since 1931. That Act did not cease at the end of that war. By the time of its abolition in 1952 it was used not for three purposes but for 32, the most bizarre of which was to trace who was guilty of bigamy. Nye Bevan said of it,
	"I believe the requirement of an internal passport is more objectionable than an external passport, and that citizens ought to be allowed to move about freely, without running the risks of being accosted by a policeman or anyone else, and asked to produce proof of identity".
	I wonder what those giants of the Labour movement, Philip Snowden and Nye Bevan, would make of this new Labour identity register. The Bill is not about preserving the citizen's identity—this Government have not in eight years taken any step to enhance or to protect personal privacy—it is about surveillance, and it should say so.
	Supporters of the Bill will say that carrying a card is not compulsory, but it is intended to be. They say that there is nothing which enables a policeman to inspect your card. How, then, could the compulsory nature of an identity card be enforced? Of course, it will happen, and it will happen shortly. On 1 January of this year carrying ID cards became compulsory in the Netherlands as a response to the killing of the film-maker, Theo van Gogh. So far 46,500 people have been fined €50 each for failing to carry an identity card—4,000 of that number were children aged 14 and 15—and a batch of 250 people were put on trial in Utrecht a few weeks ago on 28 September last for positively refusing to carry one. That is the Netherlands experience of ID cards.
	The Bill puts into the hands of the Government a central database containing direct and indirect access to everything known about an individual. As the Bill is drafted, the database will contain a person's national insurance number, his passport number and his driving licence details, and it will be necessary to have his movements and his addresses recorded. Is it to be thought that bank accounts, credit card accounts, tax records, medical records and criminal records will not contain at their head a person's identity number? Your personal identity number will be on file in the tax office. It will easily be cross-referenced at some future date.
	When coming to and going from this country will there not be a form, as there are in many countries, to inquire who you are, on which you will register your identity card number? If that is not going to happen, how else are identity cards to be used to control immigration? When coming to and going from the UK we will all be required to fill in forms and to put on them our identity numbers, which no doubt will be fed back into the central database to find out who we are.
	Will the Bill stop identity fraud? The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said that he was afraid of losing his credit card because it would give people access to his credit. That is a limited access although it may be very unfortunate to have your credit card account interfered with. However, if a hacker—the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, referred to this—gains access to the proposed central database, he can steal every aspect of one's identity.
	Will the Bill stop terrorists? Suppose that every person were to swipe their identity card on entering a Tube train and that train were to be blown apart by a suicide bomber, you would know who the British citizens were who were on that train, but you would not know who the foreign visitors were, and you would not know which of the passengers was the suicide bomber anyway. How is an identity card supposed to protect the citizens of this country from a suicide bomber? In Spain 40 years ago under General Franco identity cards were introduced—that was a fascist dictatorship, of course—but that did not prevent the Madrid bombings that occurred a year or two ago.
	Like the rest of your Lordships I have nothing to hide, but that does not mean to say that I am happy to carry an identity card. If I have nothing to hide, why should government departments and authorities have access to all this information about me? Why should this or any future government have in their hands the means of surveillance of the whole of my life? Certainly, privacy must be balanced against security and the interests of the individual have to be balanced against the interests of the state, but we run the risk of losing the right balance and of letting fear rule our lives for this moment, with the danger of allowing government—a favourable government or a malign one—to rule our lives in the future. Let us call this identity card and the database behind it what they are—tools for the personal surveillance of every citizen in this country. I beg to move.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: The noble Lord will know from his profession that opinion polls in Australia were in favour of identity cards until the proposals were put under parliamentary scrutiny. Then the public mood changed completely and there was a majority against the Bill. Surely the noble Lord is not going to be part of a Government that simply governs in accordance with what opinion polls say at one particular moment and accepts that debate and scrutiny over a period of time, such as we are doing tonight, is a very important part of our democracy.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: I share the implicit views of my noble friend Lady Park that the Bill would be better called the "National Identity Register Bill" than the Identity Cards Bill. I apologise that I was not present in the Chamber earlier. The Home Office is bringing three Bills through your Lordships' House, all of which are at different stages. I have spent part of the afternoon listening to the Home Secretary talk about the Terrorism Bill, and to the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Andy Hayman, in a "standing room only" meeting in Portcullis House, talking in a similar way about the police's view on the issue of 90 days. So I have been gainfully employed but I have not had the privilege of hearing the precise views of the noble Lord, Lord Gould, on opinion polls. I gather that that has played a large part in the matter that we are discussing.
	I am speaking not as the man on the Clapham omnibus but temporarily as the famous man at a bus stop referred to in an intervention on "Any Questions?" many years ago. I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Gould, has prayed in aid the results of opinion polls, and I apologise that I will have to read his comments tomorrow to see precisely what he has said. My mind goes back to the occasion on "Any Questions?" when capital punishment was totally the vogue and the late Mr Enoch Powell, who was on the panel, was asked why he was an abolitionist when the opinion polls in the country were running at 83 per cent in favour of retention. Mr Powell said that those opinions had been gathered at places like bus stops. He added that if he happened to be in a queue at a bus stop when a man with a clipboard asked the only other person standing at that bus stop what he thought about capital punishment, and that person was one of the 83 per cent, he could guarantee that if the bus did not come along for another 15 minutes he could turn that person's opinion round. Therefore, although I acknowledge that I do not know the precise detail of what the noble Lord, Lord Gould, said, I am hesitant to take for granted what the opinion polls say. I have to remark in passing that my Labour colleagues in the other place paid no intention at all to opinion polls on capital punishment when it was debated in the Commons.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Does the noble Lord not agree that with these loyalty cards there is a reward at the end? You get points or money for being a member of a loyalty card scheme. That is the incentive for having a loyalty card. I do not think that there will be any such incentive from the national identity card, is there? Perhaps there is.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, it is my pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Astor, on initiating this debate. I congratulate him, too, on its timeliness because it is the 10th anniversary of both the tragedy of Srebrenica and of the Dayton accords. It is also on the eve of the departure of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. Clearly he has done his job extremely well, using the Bonn powers available to him as the High Representative very effectively indeed. Certainly during the visit last November—exactly a year ago—of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the other place, which I had the pleasure to lead, there was almost universal admiration of his work—except of course for the most nationalist of politicians, some of whom were dismissed, quite properly, at his insistence. Both the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, and Major General Leakey ensure that there is a substantial British contribution to Bosnia at the moment—General Leakey, of course, heading EUFOR, which took over from SFOR in December of last year.
	It is right to put this debate in the context of the western Balkans generally and the turbulence in the 1990s caused by the dissolution of the Yugoslav empire. Bitter ethnic conflict swept through the Balkans as the flaming baton touched all the relevant countries—except only partially Slovenia and Macedonia, with the flames of conflict reaching there in 2002, but, happily, they did not prevail. There are in the area still levels of ethnic hatred, high unemployment, the poorest education in Europe, smuggling, human trafficking and the arms trade—all of which form a lethal cocktail.
	The western Balkans have been variously described as a "marginalised black hole". More positively, when I met George Papandreou—the then Greek Foreign Minister—in his office he crossed to a large map of Europe on the wall; he pointed out the western Balkans and said, "There is the missing piece of Europe's jigsaw"—and it does indeed seem like that when one looks at the map.
	Yet even with this unpromising background there are now promising signs. Indeed, the past few months may be seen by historians as a tipping point in the relations of the western Balkans with the European Union. The noble Lord has already mentioned the decision in October that Croatia should be accepted as a candidate for the EU; on 7 November at Brussels, Foreign Ministers of the EU agreed to accelerate their commitments to the Balkans and to play an active part in the future of Kosovo as we now approach the decision on its final status, with Martii Ahtisaari charged by the United Nations with the responsibility for the negotiations. On the same day there was the official opening of discussions between the European Union and Serbia and Montenegro on a stability and association agreement, the first step to EU membership, and agreement then to open as soon as soon as practicable similar SAA negotiations with Bosnia-Herzegovina. I notice that a month ago the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, referred to 12 December as the date for opening those negotiations, but now I understand that they are likely to open on 21 November.
	The presidents of several of the countries—Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina—have met in Sarejevo. Nicholas Burns, the US Under-Secretary of State, has clarified the US position in relation to the conditional independence of Kosovo, with incentives for the Serbs, and no objection in principle if Montenegro were to vote for independence in its referendum next year. At the same time the EU Commission has declared Macedonia worthy of candidate status when only four years ago there was a real danger of civil war there.
	As to NATO, can the Minister say what progress has been made in the area? We know of the progress with the Adriatic three but, even though in Bosnia-Herzegovina there is still a NATO mission dealing with defence reform, and given the lack of co-operation with ICTY, what prospects are there for somehow circumventing that and moving the countries of the area closer to NATO?
	It is almost exactly a year ago that the Foreign Affairs Committee of the other place was in the Sarejevo. We saw that Dayton was a necessary framework to end the war but clearly not to build a nation. We saw many negative features, including the vast bureaucracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the state spends up to 70 per cent of taxpayers' money on governing itself and only 30 per cent on its people, with 14 Parliaments and 1,000 Ministers. We heard of the dependency factor whereby many politicians were unable to take necessary but controversial decisions and relied on the strong man at the top. There is widespread corruption, unemployment and a failure to deal with war crimes.
	Can the Minister say how Her Majesty's Government view the extent of the co-operation from both Bosnia and Serbia? I understand that, over the past 11 months, 11 indictees—or "PIFWCs", as they are called; persons indicted for war crimes—have "voluntary surrendered" with seven remaining. How do we view the current degree of co-operation from both Bosnia and Serbia?
	When the committee was there it also saw signs of hope. We saw the first EU joint civil and military crisis management operation, with the transfer last December from SFOR to EUFOR, the first real test case for the ESDP. There has been a smooth transition; it has worked. Bosnia and Herzegovina have one currency, one passport, and more common institutions. A centrally administered VAT will be in operation from the beginning of next year. As the noble Lord mentioned, more than 90 per cent of property claims from the turbulence of the 1990s have been settled, and of the 2.2 million refugees only about 250,000 are still waiting to return.
	The key slogan "From Dayton to Brussels" is underlined by the report of the International Commission on the Balkans, The Balkans in Europe's Future, and, of course by the important decision of Republika Srpska a month ago to join in the police integration, which may take many years to be implemented but is still a very significant step. The EU is the terminus. It is the key to promoting regional co-operation and internal restructuring. It is clear that the western Balkans are manageable and it is in our mutual interests to do so. Otherwise there will be instability on our doorstep, a constant flow of immigrants and increasing criminal and terrorist networks.
	What are HMG—including the World Service of the BBC—specifically doing in respect of Bosnia-Herzegovina? Is the European Union now considering a relaxation of the visa regime in respect of Bosnia? What lessons have we learnt from other accession countries—for example, Bulgaria—in terms of the scale and nature of financial assistance? Should there be a national development plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina to help integration?
	I end on this point about the symbolism of Sarejevo. In the summer of 1914 Sarejevo sparked the outbreak of the First World War. That war inspired the founding fathers of the European Union to dream of a united Europe. The Commission on the Balkans declared boldly:
	"It is in Sarejevo in the summer of 2014 that Europe should demonstrate that a new European century has arrived".
	That is the challenge—in my judgment it is attainable—and it is in our mutual interests that we grasp the opportunity.??

Lord Greaves: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, for initiating this short debate. I congratulate him particularly on his timing; politicians from most of the important parties in Bosnia are meeting, together with people from the international community, to attempt to thrash out a more suitable constitution 10 years after the Dayton Accord was first agreed. The noble Lord's timing is impeccable, and I thought his speech was as well, as was that of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. They are both far more distinguished than me in this field. I put my name down to speak in this debate, thinking that I would offer a few comments arising from my visits to Bosnia and how the people I have spoken to there see things, and now find myself having to wind up the debate from these Benches—that is the way of the world in this House.
	I agree fundamentally with the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that the European Union is the key to the whole of the Balkans, particularly to sorting out Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is not the most important thing; most important are the citizens of that country, who have to find ways of working with each other sensibly and democratically, running a modern democratic state and building a modern economy. People from the European Union can help and put appropriate pressure on them to do this.
	My visits to Bosnia have mainly been connected with meeting members of political parties and engaging in training sessions to try to get some of the non-sectarian parties—very small, weak parties—to understand how they might make electoral progress. I have to say that the results have been almost a complete failure. The only non-sectarian party which has really been able to survive in the environment of Bosnian politics is the Social Democratic Party, the SDP. It had the great advantage of being the successor to the old Communist Party so it inherited a lot of property, money and resources which enabled it to survive. The rest of the parties are floundering around in a murky maelstrom and find it very difficult to survive.
	The international community has at various times tried to support some of these parties, but has not been very successful. Initially, at the first elections, it thought it would be a good idea to encourage candidates, so it paid people to become candidates. Surprise, surprise—more than 100 political parties and lots of independents registered. They did not want to get elected; it was simply a way of getting some income after the collapse of the former Yugoslavian and Bosnian economy. That is an example of the law of unintended consequences.
	In order to survive, some non-sectarian parties found it necessary to make alliances with sectarian parties, particularly the SDA, the main Muslim party, the Bosniak nationalist Party of Democratic Action, which has formed a coalition for a united and democratic BiH, or the KCD, which has made some progress. In doing so, it has subsumed its own non-sectarian nature as part of what is still an overtly sectarian coalition, although less nationalist in its approach than some of the parties such as the SDS, the Republika Srpska and the HDZ, which was described to me, before I met some of its members, as the right-wing faction of Mr Tujman's party from Croatia. Having met them, I know exactly what that means. I now know what old-fashioned eastern European bureaucrats are like. I had never met people like that before and it was quite an interesting experience. It was a combination of old-style party apparatchiks and Croatian nationalism. They gave us a half-hour lecture on Croatian history, how Croatia had been independent for about 10 years in the 11th or 12th century and how that justified everything they were doing.
	This was amusing, but the real problem is that such people are still very strong underground and can get most of the votes from the Croat community in Bosnia. It is not just a Serb problem. The fact that the war took place was clearly mainly at the instigation of Serb nationalists. However, the real problem in Bosnia is that when you talk to people individually they say they would love to transform to a modern European state, but most vote defensively for the party they see as representing their community. They think that if they do not vote for them and vote for social democrats, liberals, conservatives or republicans, they will lose out because the other lot will still vote for the nationalist lot. It reminded me very much of Northern Ireland, except that there are three ethnic religious groups rather than two. That leads to extra complications, quite apart from the structure of the two entities.
	The last time I went to Bosnia, three years ago, I was told by people across several small non-nationalist parties from both the Republika Srpska and the federation, "This is our only opportunity to meet. We can't function as a normal democratic political party because we have no income, effectively. The party has no resources and we can't afford to come to Sarajevo and all meet together". They found it very difficult. Some people from a northern town in the Republika Srpska explained how politics worked in their town. The privatisation which had taken place after the war resulted in some of the local state enterprises being sold off to people who were prominent members of the SDS, the Serbian Democratic Party. They owned the enterprises and, in turn, funded the political party. The privatised industry which had been sold to the old bureaucrats—the old apparatchiks—was now funding the political party it was supporting. It was a dual relationship. When I asked whether they could campaign against these people, they said, "The problem is that they run everything; they deliver everything through these firms so they give the contracts back to the firms that support them and pay for them and they determine who gets what. So if you want to put central heating in an old people's block of flats or employ wardens, you vote for that party. If you don't, they will spend the money on people who do vote for them". That is an example of old-fashioned machine politics and very difficult to counter.
	I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Ashdown and the fantastic work he has done in Bosnia. He has taken the country forward as far as it was possible to take it forward. But he and everybody else now recognises that we are no longer in a position whereby an old-fashioned colonial government—what a commentator in the Guardian this week called "benevolent liberal imperialism"—is possible. The country has to move on, and power has to be transferred to local politicians and local people. In that respect, would the Minister like to comment on the discussions that have taken place between the international community, the Americans and others, and political leaders from Bosnia? We are told that secret discussions have taken place for six or seven months; I wonder what role we are playing in that. Does the Minister think there may be some favourable outcomes in doing away with the entities, the cantons and the federation, and moving towards a much more unitary state? It may seem strange for a liberal to say that but, in a country of 4 million people in those circumstances, it is absolutely necessary. Does he believe that we may be able, with the help of people in Bosnia, to move forward to a new era politically, as well as everything else—because if we do not do it politically, the place will not survive?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, for a timely debate. It may have had relatively few speakers, but it has generated a great many questions. Ten years ago next week, on 21 November 1995, representatives of the warring parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina assembled on an air base in Dayton, Ohio, to initial what would become the Dayton peace agreement. This finally ended the bitter fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina and established the constitutional structures of the country we know today.
	Today, Bosnia stands on the threshold of a new chapter in its history: the beginning of a long and arduous path to eventual membership of the European Union. I noted the mention by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, of the 100 candidates who pitched in as a lesson that we should not follow that path. I also noticed his argument, with which I agree, that there is an overwhelming desire for more normal political and economic life. The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, described to us the ebb and flow of history over 2,000 years, which would certainly lead me to desire a bit more normality.
	The achievements of the past 10 years are largely thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, and I hope we will see him in his place in the House soon. For the past three and a half years he has been the international community's high representative and EU Special Representative to Bosnia. The noble Lord has spent that time well supported by his team, and, when necessary, he has been prepared to take hard decisions himself. He leaves Bosnia in a far stronger position. I am sure noble Lords will join me in expressing gratitude and admiration for all that he has achieved, and indeed other noble Lords have said so during the debate. We owe him a great debt. The noble Baroness used the word "miraculous", and he has contributed significantly to that miracle.
	I also pay tribute to another British citizen to whom Bosnia, the EU, NATO and the international community have reason to be grateful. Next month we will see the UK hand over command of the EU peacekeeping operation in Bosnia, EUFOR, to the Italians. EUFOR has been commanded by Major-General David Leakey for the last 12 months, and he has done a superb job. EUFOR has successfully established itself as a robust and credible successor to NATO's stabilisation force, guaranteeing a safe and secure environment. It is true, as the noble Baroness says, that much of the continuing work on disarmament and dealing with criminality takes us to a much more secure future, and it is down to that force.
	It is in part a testament to the international community's military, diplomatic and political investment in Bosnia—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves says, to the Bosnian people themselves—that Bosnia has come so far in 10 years. Just how far Bosnia has come is underlined by other 10th anniversaries commemorated this year: that, as has been mentioned, of the massacre of around 8,000 Bosnian men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995; and those of the massacres that took place in countless other towns and villages all over Bosnia. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs attended the commemorations in Srebrenica this year.
	All this must make us reflect on the path that Bosnia and Herzegovina are going down. Noble Lords have raised the issue of the Dayton peace accords in this sense. Those accords were not only a peace treaty, but also the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That constitution has the support of the US and Europe, and any change to it requires the consent of all three constituent peoples. It is enshrined in Dayton. Imposing constitutional reform would break the principle of consent, and would hinder Bosnia and Herzegovina's further Euro-Atlantic integration. The discussions are important because they are the means of moving towards greater consent, and constitutional reform, although not a prerequisite for further Euro-Atlantic integration, is essential if progress is to be made along that path, particularly in Europe. Those are questions that both the noble Lord, Lord Astor, and my noble friend Lord Anderson raised, and it is right that we focus on them.
	It is right, too, that we focus on Bosnia's future in a general sense, as well as on the past. If, as we hope, the European Union opens negotiations with Bosnia on a stabilisation and association agreement before the end of the year, this will send an important message about the direction of travel in which both Bosnia and the EU are headed. For Bosnia it will mark the first step on the path to eventual EU membership, and with this step will come important benefits in terms of trade and assistance—precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, urged upon all those involved.
	For the EU, opening these negotiations will be another signal that the enlargement agenda—to which I know the Conservative Party is committed, as are all other parties in this House—remains on track. It will also show that the European Union keeps its promises. If the countries of the western Balkans meet the necessary conditions, the EU will honour its part in that bargain. It will also mean that the countries of the region will have concluded, or will be negotiating, formal contractual relations with the EU. So the 10th anniversary of Dayton should bring with it reasons to celebrate, as well as reasons to reflect, for Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UK and the EU.
	It is important, as we have done in this debate, to acknowledge the progress Bosnia has made up to this point. That progress, as the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, says, would be all the more marked if people could return safely to their homes across the whole of the area. Bosnia has carried out far-reaching reforms of its judiciary, tax and defence structures, as my noble friend Lord Anderson pointed out. A functioning state court will be trying its first war crimes cases, transferred back to Bosnia by the tribunal at The Hague. It has just agreed, after a long struggle, to root out and deal with police structures. These are vital steps in getting to grips with corruption and waste.
	Perhaps the biggest success to date has been in defence reform. Bosnia agreed earlier this year to reforms that will unite the three former armies into a single military force. This is a huge step for any country or peoples whose armies faced each other across enemy lines in such a spirit of violence just 10 years ago. The best guarantee that external forces, including ours, can hand the job over is the emergence of a credible military force that can take over the security issues.
	All these reforms have one thing in common: they have strengthened the Bosnian state and laid the foundations for the process of Euro-Atlantic integration. There is a good deal more to be done, however. Despite the important progress of the past few years, there are significant challenges. International support will be required for years to come and many of the challenges are a legacy of the years of conflict. In particular, if Bosnia is to complete the transition from a post-conflict state to a member state of the European Union and NATO, it must draw a line once and for all under the issue of war crimes.
	This means demonstrating full and unequivocal co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. A number of noble Lords made exactly that point. It means ensuring that all fugitive indictees—in particular Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic—are located and transferred to The Hague. It is an outrage that the two men indicted as the architects of the atrocities at Srebrenica remain at large 10 years on.
	The transfer of a number of indictees to The Hague earlier this year was a welcome step. I can say in response to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that progress has been visible but it is partial and it cannot be described as more than that. But it also showed that the EU and NATO policy of conditionality—making clear that full co-operation with the ICTY was a pre-requisite for further integration—works. But Bosnia's co-operation with the ICTY and that of Serbia and Montenegro cannot be considered full while Karadzic and Mladic are still at large. And Croatia has acknowledged that it must maintain co-operation with the ICTY until the fugitive indictee Gotovina is also at The Hague.
	The noble Lord, Lord Astor, raised a number of important points about this process. The United States and others have been clear that Belgrade must comply with its obligation, and until the government turn over the indicted mass murderers, the United States will not agree to Serbia and Montenegro's participation in NATO's partnership for peace. Those are the representations that this Government have also made. We support NATO's position on the need for co-operation and we will make further representations in addition to all those we have made with the Belgrade leadership to ensure that they understand those points.
	Important questions were asked by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, on the need for a functioning state and state reforms. I am happy to have had the opportunity to make these key points. We will insist that there is a continuing process of reform so that Bosnia's future can be self-sustaining and viable. Increasingly, the international community is looking to the Bosnian authorities to show the leadership and political maturity required to deliver the next stage of Euro-Atlantic integration. These are not just economic issues; they are political issues. As all noble Lords have said, the nationalist, zero-sum politics, too evident in the region, cannot continue to be the norm.
	Despite the excellent work of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, and EUFOR in this area, the rule of law remains a challenge also. Having reached an agreement in principle on police reform, Bosnia must now implement that agreement and do so in the right way. Without this, there is little chance of a serious effort to tackle the scourge of organised crime.
	The EU police mission, EUPM, is working to assist Bosnia's police and law enforcement agencies in tackling the challenge. Bosnia must be able to function effectively as a state. The Dayton peace agreement gave Bosnia its constitution, but it is a complicated and costly set of arrangements and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, put the point very well. As Bosnia makes progress towards EU membership, it will need to evolve and ensure that it is capable of complex negotiations in order to make the progress full and ensure regional stability. I do not believe that further Balkanisation—to take the word that rightly came from the area, cantonisation—is liable to help that process. I believe that we must take that stance across the region, too.
	In conclusion, perhaps I may answer the comments of one or two noble Lords as there is a little time to do so. The aim of the BBC World Service is to provide the audience with an authoritative and reliable news service and current affairs coverage of the region and the wider European and international agenda. I believe that it has done that and will do so successfully. In response to my noble friend Lord Anderson, the visa regimes throughout that area, as elsewhere, are kept under review on their individual merits and they will be lifted when it is judged that the threat that led to their introduction has been removed.
	The discussions in the western Balkans on progress towards EU integration is also important and we are using our presidency to drive forward the stabilisation and association process. We expect to enter discussions with Bosnia shortly. We anticipate that the discussions will start on 21 November. We talked a little about refugee returns and I made a few comments on that in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. I can add only that we are working hard on that with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The rate of return of displaced people to their pre-war homes has dropped in the past five years as most of those who are willing to return have done so. That makes the remainder of the task harder, but we should not give up on it.
	The final key question—if there are others I will read the text of what other noble Lords have said and do my best to respond to anything that I have missed—was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and it was in several other speeches as well. It was about Bosnia being invited to join NATO's Partnership for Peace and what the position would be with Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia—the Adriatic Three as they are called. They all have a number of reforms to complete. I have mentioned some of those reforms in my response to the debate. There has been some good progress on meeting military conditions. However, NATO Foreign Ministers have not invited Bosnia-Herzegovina to join the PFP because there are still those remaining concerns about co-operation with the ICTY. I make that point clearly and succinctly. The condition is so simple and so clear that it can be grasped as it is; and as it is grasped progress can be made.
	As we have all said in this debate, Bosnia has come a long way in 10 years with significant gains and it has a long way to go. Its past is a matter of bitter regret, but its future is clear. It can one day be a member of the EU and of NATO, but how long that process takes largely depends on the Bosnians themselves. It also depends on the continued support of the UK and the wider international community, and Bosnia can count on that support. We have said what it needs to do to have that support fully expressed. That support will include frank advice about what needs to be done, including ICTY co-operation. Next week's anniversary is a chance to reflect on how far we have come and also on why we must remain engaged to ensure Bosnia's long-term sustainability and success. I am very grateful for this debate, because all noble Lords who have taken part in it have emphasised that sense of hope against a very real sense of what must be done. If this House can send a message, that is the best message that it can send.

Baroness Seccombe: Before I begin, for the convenience of the Committee I can say that my noble friend Lady Anelay will not move Amendment No. 7.
	Amendment No. 5 seeks to assert a principle that will lie behind many of our amendments to the Bill. That is so because, as the Constitution Committee of your Lordships' House rightly said, the Bill brings about a fundamental change in the relationship between the citizen and the state. Every aspect of it must be tightly controlled by Parliament.
	We fought a civil war and had two revolutions in the 17th century precisely to ensure parliamentary protection for the citizen against the encroachment on our freedoms by the executive. Parliament must not yield an inch of ground to the secretive and ever-more powerful 21st-century electronic state. Not even Queen Elizabeth I's infamous Walsingham aspired to build up an audit trail of the activities of the Queen's loyal subjects.
	I have read carefully the opinions of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships' House. It has made many important observations on the sweeping secondary powers in this skeleton Bill. It is skeleton not for the convenience of the public or of Parliament but of Ministers, who patently do not yet know, or will not say, what in detail they intend. Will the noble Baroness or the noble Lord give a commitment that they will accept all the recommendations of that committee and lay amendments at this stage of the Bill wherever possible? That would certainly speed up its consideration.
	For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that we do not share the committee's view that this is a Bill for compulsion with a voluntary period preceding it. We have done what the committee could not do—we have read the Labour Party manifesto and found nothing in it either about compulsion or about compulsory volunteering. It is essential that Parliament controls encroachments on freedoms, particularly those of which no notice was given to the British public. Indeed, the Labour Party manifesto was explicit that a scheme would be rolled out,
	" on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports".
	"On a voluntary basis"—that is what the Government put to the people only six months ago. If the committee had seen that, it would not have construed that there was any mandate for compulsion. Indeed, the manifesto was explicit that even in relation to the issuing of passports, the scheme would be voluntary. That is not the Bill before us. The Executive cannot simply move the goalposts in a matter that the Constitution Committee has found to be so fundamental. Parliament must control every step, every pound that is spent, and the amendment is earnest of that.
	I draw the Committee's attention to paragraph 60 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill:
	"The exact specification and design of ID cards has yet to be determined but when it is these will be set out in regulations".
	Is it not remarkable that a government should set out on such a far-reaching, fantastically costly and probably unreliable scheme without even having worked out what the cards will look like or how they will operate? That is the open admission of Ministers: "We do not know exactly what we want, but when we do we shall tell you and put unamendable regulations before you". When was that a proper basis for legislation that will tax every Briton simply for being alive? Parliament must have far greater opportunities to control this situation and, if necessary, amend it.
	I sincerely hope that the Minister will accept the amendment and that in replying he will point to the sentence that I that must have missed in the manifesto which talks of compulsion or of compulsory volunteering and that he will tell us the exact specification and design of the ID cards. The public, whose money is being spent on this—rather than on schools and hospitals—have a right to know. I beg to move.

The Earl of Erroll: This amendment gives me at an opportunity to say what I should have said on the previous amendment in reply to the Minister. An agency is planned for this, and the Minister said that that would make it subject to parliamentary scrutiny or control. I have always understood that one problem with agencies is that we could not ask questions of the Minister about them, as agencies are separate bodies. Agencies are responsible to Ministers and to the charters that set them up, but as long as they operate within that, Parliament cannot ask questions directly about what they get up to or how they operate. I may be wrong, but I would like some clarification.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 not moved.]

Lord Lyell of Markyate: My noble friend has done a service to the Committee in focusing our thoughts on "convenient" because it cuts both ways. I am inclined to think that it is wise to leave the word "convenient" in, but we should look and read what has to be convenient. It has to be a "convenient" method for individuals to prove registerable facts about themselves. One of the most cumbersome registerable facts that later provisions of the Bill require are all of the addresses at which one has lived over a substantial period. Fortunately, a number of amendments have been tabled to limit that period and one hopes that they will be looked at favourably. Certainly, I will listen carefully to the arguments from the Government for going back many years.
	It will be clear from my other speeches that I am particularly concerned with the section of society that is unlikely immediately to get an identity card, passport or driving licence. I am talking about the minority of 10 per cent or 20 per cent, some of whom will be frightened about asking for an identity card as soon as they begin to think about it. They may well think, as noble Lords have said in support of the Government, "I would like something to prove my identity. It gives me some status in society". However, when they discover that they will have to provide a lot of detail about their exact working status, that will be a source of anxiety for many people. The Government may say, "Ha, ha! That's a good thing". Perhaps that is part of the side wind of the Bill, but it will cause anxiety.
	On the question of residence, going back to the 1970s when I lived in Lambeth, young black men were regularly required to leave home by their parents at about the age of 16 or 17 and went to live in empty dwellings, which were rife in Lambeth in those days in what were known as housing action areas—areas where housing was empty and the local authority took no action whatever. But that is where they went to live. However, among the people with whom they went to live, some were nice young men but some were undesirables. Under paragraph 7(d) of Schedule 1, there is a right to check up and record anything you find when checking out such information and it may be that you were living with someone who had a criminal record and you are a little worried about it.
	All I am saying—and I will stop here—is that the word "convenient" has a great many important sub-aspects to it. I hope the Government will bear that closely in mind.